Creation and destruction Quote by Carl Zimmer

At long last, we may be returning to the original two-sided sense of the word virus, which originally signified either a life-giving substance or…

— Carl Zimmer

My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognized as such because…

— William S. Burroughs

“The Romans were not wiped out by the invasions of the barbarians, nor by the Christian virus, but by a more subtle evil, boredom.”

— Emil Cioran

Sometimes, a word succeeds beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, like a virus sent into the world to infect common speech.

— Jasper Fforde

The word is now a virus.

— William S. Burroughs

“What do scientists mean when they talk of a virus? This is not quite so elementary as some people might believe. In The Shorter…

— Frank Ryan

“I loved those Latin words for their dignity, their foreignness, and the way my tongue had to wrap around them. I felt that in…

— Abraham Verghese

“In the beginning was the Word... Whatever this was, the Word, disease or creation, it was still running rampant; it would run on and…

— Henry Miller

“The people who wrote viruses knew they had to stay one step ahead; they developed ways to make their viruses more difficult to detect.”

— Peter H. Gregory

“virus writers lack the basic social and moral values and the “well-formed consciousness” that are the hallmarks of civilized modern societies.”

— Peter H. Gregory

“It is worth remembering that if God created the world and all things in it, he created smallpox, plague, and filariasis. Any person who…

— Sam Harris

“Viruses don’t just happen; people write them deliberately.”

— Peter H. Gregory